A better question is why WOULDN'T you milk something that was popular?

Part of this may just be personal, I admit. I'm getting pretty tired of seein' Angry Birds stuff everywhere. Also, the Mario analogy isn't quite accurate. Mario games have had a reputation for bringing fun and unique experiences for years (NSMB need a little punch, but NSMBU should help that). However, Angry Birds' many editions differ very little, if I'm correct. Also, from what I've heard, public interest in Angry Birds has gone done. If they want it to be successful, they need to mix it up a bit.

I foresee what you'll do there.
-The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is. ~Winston Churchill

It's all the merchandise and Angry Birds crap that i'm tired of seeing. Yeah it's a popular mobile game, whatever, but having t-shirts and costumes and hats and pens and tattoos and gosh, i'm just sick of how they milk it's popularity with that kind of stuff, not the games.

This franchise has survived for almost two years with easily hundreds of millions of downloads. For sure, the game has become a classic and it won't go away any time soon, though I doubt it will have the hype it had last year. I always go to this star wars page to check the walkthroughs for high scores

A better question is why WOULDN'T you milk something that was popular?

Because doing so puts you in danger of oversaturation (ie People getting tired of it). Once that happens, all that investment could go straight down the toilet, and you'll be left with a lot of merchandise that won't sell.

If you space it out a little, it'll take longer for people to get tired of it. Dedicated fans will be more likely to afford to buy everything you put out, so there's no wasted investments. The only problem is that if you space it out too much, it'll fall out of the public's conscousness, but that's not always a bad thing, since then you'll have potential nostalgia dollars.

It really is better to not go overboard. For Angry Birds, it might be alright for a while. The games are cheap and obviously have a lot of work put into them so far. But still, Angry Birds has been around for about 3 or so years now. Will it still be around for another 3 years, or will it go the way of the dodo? I suppose only time will tell.

"We feel incredibly lucky that people have taken to something we love so much."
"I think every game developer dreams of having a hit, but even in our wildest dreams we didn't imagine a hit of this magnitude."

Rovio

"But the valuation [of our company] from our point of view is somewhere, I dunno, maybe north of PopCap."
"We're not scared of saturating the market. We're afraid we won't be able to fill the demand."
"Buy our shitty merchandise!"
“It’s interesting to see people like Nintendo saying smartphones are destroying the games industry. Of course, if I was trying to sell a $49 pieces of plastic to people then yes, I’d be worried too."
"Xbox Live is doing it wrong and consoles are on their deathbed"
"I feel it's safe to say we are a religion larger then Christianity"

A better question is why WOULDN'T you milk something that was popular?

Part of this may just be personal, I admit. I'm getting pretty tired of seein' Angry Birds stuff everywhere. Also, the Mario analogy isn't quite accurate. Mario games have had a reputation for bringing fun and unique experiences for years (NSMB need a little punch, but NSMBU should help that). However, Angry Birds' many editions differ very little, if I'm correct. Also, from what I've heard, public interest in Angry Birds has gone done. If they want it to be successful, they need to mix it up a bit.

And what exactly is unique about New Super Mario Bros? I make like them, but I wouldn't call them "unique"

And what exactly is unique about New Super Mario Bros? I make like them, but I wouldn't call them "unique"

I'd like to point out as many others have that NSMB does get milking complaints (me included) despite the fact that there have been 3 titles over 6 years.
They're not unique, but they add more to the table then a new Angry Birds title.